Yep, Mr Walker. If a club can’t make a go out of the enormous, sprawling Liverpool-Campbelltown-Camden area, it’s not serious. They must juniors en masse out there.
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Typical business hypocrisy, teflon leaders who are NOT accountable
It won’t work. The NRL will want to have a new franchise out in Perth if thats the way they are going with the expansion. They will say the Bears will have to much ‘Sydney Baggage’ and to get the support out in WA they should start with a fresh slate.
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There should be no expansion until 2030. The fiasco with the Dolphins should show the NRL/ARLC the error of their ways. Sure, extra games for TV revenue sounds attractive, but the diminution of the game will have long term consequences.
There are just not enough players of NRL quality to have 18 teams, and. as we see with the dolphins, the new teams build their roster by just raiding other clubs, not by bringing in new players from their system.
They are just moving players from one club to another, inflating player payments in the process.
The winners are the non-development clubs with the best salary cap accountants.
As for the bears - they are dead and gone. I agree with Steve - any new club needs to be a start-up, building local support from the beginning.
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I agree that they shouldn’t be used as a proxy by another area. If they are going to come back it should be a North Sydney/Central Coast expansion.
Perth, or any other area for that matter should be a new entity that has no ties to an existing Sydney club.
I wonder which Penrith district club they’ll try to steal as their feeder club.
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I don’t think PNG will take the 18th spot. Olam raises some good points, and the NRL should pay attention. Because now would be a good time for the NRL to sit down with the PNG and Australian governments and get the ball rolling.
The thing is this… the NRL won’t stop at 18 teams. If I had to predict where the NRL will be by 2030, I would say 20 to 22 teams (in two conferences probably). So there will be room for PNG, but the foundations need to be set now, years in advance.
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Agreed. I think Perth has to be the next team, probably within 2-3 years.
The time will come for more expansions, and PNG will get there at some stage, the questions are when, and what needs to be done before they make a serious bid.
PNG makes more sense than Perth. We should NOT consider teams in the short term who have no junior production, our comp cannot sustain itself as it is with the limited talent.
If you short change the spectacle for the anticipated $$$ return, you are asking for trouble…and it will come in time. Us old head footy fans have corrupted our kids to a point, but if their desire to support wains, the game itself will be F@#$ed.
I’m not sure what you mean @Kevin.
The WARL Junior league is fairly comprehensive, their local competition consists of almost 30 teams with grades ranging from Under 15’s to a State League.
Their state junior league has produced NRL talent such as Curtis Rona, Waqa Blake and Bryson Goodwin.
The support for a side is there, sellouts in Perth hosted State of Origin over the past few year have shown their thirst for Rugby League.
Perths time difference also is a dream for the Networks looking to deliver more live primetime football, you can go into a game live in Sydney and hold a live game later in the evening, to a live audience in Perth.
the “limited talent” argument can be made for PNG too. A lack of a comprehensive junior system there would put them a fair way Perth as a viable side, not to mention the security concerns over player safety.
This doesn’t mean neither don’t deserve a NRL licence, quite the opposite. There is a desire for Rugby League in these regions, it’s the NRL mandate to exploit that opportunity and help build these junior systems. They need money and expertise pumped in to bring them to their potential.
But as far as expansion, WA is much further down that path in development than PNG.
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Fair enough Steve, I wasn’t aware of the WA junior comps, my comments were naive and obviously impacted by the Perth Reds debacle.
Your comment re SOO also a factor hence the $$$ grab comment. Let’s not lose focus, the Perth Reds had good crowds when they kicked off, then home games were empty. NRL games are a different beast to SOO played once every how many years…
My short-minded mindset is that PNG are in the QLD cup, surely we (they) are establishing pathways to support this, they are footy mad. If not the NRL have missed the boat there.
IMO we need a 2nd side in NZ to take on Rugby, the All Blacks are not what they used to be (matter of time before they fix that) and the Kiwi league team are full of champions, surely that is a marketing dream.
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Ideally the NRL needs to add 3 to 5 more teams.
Perth, Adelaide, PNG, NZ2, QLD4 and Pacific Islands are all good candidates.
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Perth, Ipswich & Central Queensland could all probably start up relatively quickly, and are likely to be the next 3 anyway.
NZ has the talent pool there, but still have to battle the Rugby for players, which is probably the biggest thing holding them back at the moment.
The Bears, playing between North Sydney & the Central Coast could probably also get up & running quickly. The North Sydney demographics have moved away from league, but the Central Coast could provide the junior pathways for them.
The talent is there in PNG, Fiji. Tonga & Samoa, but they probably need to work on the grassroots a bit more before making a bid.
I’d be keen to see Adelaide return, and also teams in Darwin & Hobart, but think there would need to be a lot of building from the ground up to make any of them a reality. Probably all a good 20 years away from even being considered a possibility.
A few other areas that could be possibilities in the future would be Riverina (playing out of Albury or Wagga Wagga), Northern NSW (playing out of Coffs Harbour or Port Macquarie), and Central West (playing out of Dubbo). All 3 areas provide a number of players already, and with the right structure in place could succeed.
I think the experience of the 80s & 90s, where we had a fast expansion & contraction, will see the NRL err on the side of caution when it comes to expanding. An 18th team in the next few years should happen, but I think further expansion will probably be at least 10 years away, giving the Dolphins & whoever becomes the 18th team time to settle in & build some success on & off the field before the pie gets divided any further.
As an indication of how crazy the 80s & especially 90s were for Rugby League, here is a brief rundown of the changes over the years:
1908
IN:
Souths
Easts
Glebe
Norths
Newcastle 1908
Balmain
Newtown
Wests
Cumberland
1909:
OUT:
Cumberland
1910
IN:
Annandale
OUT:
Newcastle 08
1920
IN:
University
1921:
IN:
St George
OUT:
Annandale
1930
OUT:
Glebe
1935
IN:
Canterbury
1938
OUT:
University
1947
IN:
Parramatta
Manly
1967
IN:
Penrith
Cronulla
1982
IN:
Canberra
Illawarra
1984
OUT:
Newtown
1988
IN:
Brisbane
Newcastle
Gold Coast-Tweed Giants
1990
Gold Coast-Tweed Giants rebranded as Gold Coast Seagulls
1995
Canterbury rebranded as Sydney Bulldogs
Balmain rebranded as Sydney Tigers
Easts rebranded as Sydney City
IN:
North Queensland
South Queensland
Western Reds
Auckland
1996
Gold Coast Seagulls rebranded as Gold Coast Gladiators in pre-season, before being rebranded Gold Coast Chargers for the season proper
Sydney Bulldogs revert to Canterbury
1997
Super League split
Sydney Tigers revert to Balmain
IN:
Adelaide
Hunter
1998
ARL & Super League merge to create the NRL
IN:
Melbourne
OUT:
South Queensland
Hunter
Western Reds
1999
St George & Illawarra merge to form St George-Illawarra Dragons
OUT:
Adelaide
Gold Coast Chargers
2000
Balmain & Wests merge to form Wests Tigers
Norths & Manly merge to form Northern Eagles
Sydney City rebranded as Sydney Roosters
OUT:
Souths
2001
Auckland rebranded as New Zealand
2002
IN:
Souths
2003
Northern Eagles de-merge with Manly taking over the licence, Norths removed from NRL
2007
IN:
Gold Coast Titans
2023
IN:
The Dolphins
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I paid a visit to Norths Leagues Club yesterday while I was in the area.
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Their entire merchandise was 1 shelf in the lobby with about 3 jerseys, 5 scarves. 10 bar runners, a book & a heap of coasters. There was a cabinet with some old memorabilia out of sight near the back entrance.
Apart from that it looked like your average bowling club.
For a club that is making some noise about becoming the 18th team, it appears to be little more than hot air. They have a long way to go if they want to be readmitted to the competition.
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I keep forgetting to reply to this thread 
!
I reckon it’s a forgone conclusion that PNG will be the 18th team, for reasons other than the obvious.
From media reporting it appears the commonwealth are going to fund the team as part of regional security, economic development and warding off PNG from the temptation of China.
It would have to be a long term commitment of course, but ~$20-30M per year is drop in the ocean compared to the foreign aid budget.
The logistics will be interesting of course, and while there is also talk of combining this with a “Pacifika” team (e.g. possibly playing 1 game a year in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga etc), one thing for sure is the locals would go mad for an NRL team, and the junior nursery is almost unlimited, as long as some of the funds go towards junior development / local comp, and not just for funding politicians to sit in luxury boxes.
Of other alternatives, Central Queensland (Rockhampton Bulls) would be most logical. Perth while maybe having money would just me another Melbourne lacking local leagues, a South Island NZ team would be like the warriors, a poor cousin to rugby (although would set up a good provincial series to rival SOO).
Then there is the nationwide expansion ideal of teams from Darwin, Adelaide (Rams), Tasmania (which would really rub AFL noses in it, although they would be another Melbourne storm).
I have had a thought how to deal with this, including the bears, Newtown, Ipswich and anyone else with NRL ambitions (Glebe, Annandale, Wenty etc). Run a pre-season or summer comp, with the top 3 teams each year getting a pass into the NRL, making it a 20 team comp.
A form of promotion / relegation of course, but the 17 NRL clubs would have certainty, and the rest would get a chance every year if they are good enough.
If the same teams each year are competing for the NRL final 3 qualifying spots, their would be opportunity to have a national 2nd division competition, formed by those teams that don’t make the NRL (and maybe NRL reserve grade / feeder teams).
Food for thought
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I don’t know if I’d say PNG are a forgone conclusion, but I think it will come down to them & Perth. Either way, they will probably be the next 2, with either Central Coast Bears or Central Queensland being added to the competition for 20 teams.
I think the timeline we are looking at will be along the lines of:
Late 2023/early 2024, open tenders for 18th team to be added in 2026 or 2027.
Late 2024/early 2025, announcement of who the 18th team will be.
2032, open tenders for 19th & 20th teams, to be added 2035.
2033, announcement of who the 19th & 20th teams will be.
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